An Artistic Checkmate, from LaBourdonnais to Zukertort, to Bronstein!

David Bronstein was a great admirer of the great Masters of the 19th Century. In particular, he mentioned La Bourdonnais and Morphy.

In this game we gain a slight glimpse as to why this is so.

Johannes Zukertort

(1842-1888)

Zukertort was one of the great players of the late 19th Century. His contributions to chess theory are numerous, and his games sparkle with positional mastery of the highest order.

Zukertort is known mostly for losing the match for the WC against Steinitz in 1886, but he died just two years after the match. Maybe his health was already in decline during the WC match....

In the following game, Zukertort produces an inspired 12-move miniature against

Adolf Anderssen, one of the strongest players

of that era.

David Bronstein

(1924-2006)

Bronstein, after recommending how to look at his chess games in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice": "When I was learning to play chess, I studied thousands and thousands of games played by the older generation in exactly the same way and gained a lot from them."

Also, Bronstein was of the opinion that you could produce high-quality chess, even at faster time controls. Here is a game with Spassky....

Bronstein: "Even one minute per game can be enough and to illustrate that, let me reproduce a short game. It was played during an interval of the USSR Chess Federation."

Interesting! I did not even know that there is such a thing as the "Czech Problemist School"! It shows my lack of chess culture and Bronstein's abundant chess culture.